Just re-creating creations creatively

The recent by-elections in Srinagar Lok Sabha seat on 9th April witnessed a poor voter turnout with only 7.14% of the total electorates coming out to vote as it saw violent clashes between protestors and security forces claiming lives of 8 civilians, and even poorer voter turnout of only 2% on the day of re-polling conducted in 38 booths. This poor voter turnout is a testimony to the government of India that it has failed Kashmiris’ confidence in democratic elections. The repeated state oppression through military has caused trouble to the Kashmiris so much so that they have gone absolutely fearless and are ready to take up stones as their weapons to fight the armed security men of the Indian state. According to Jammu & Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, there have been over 70,000 extrajudicial killings, 8000 plus forced disappearances, mass torture and sexual violence since 1990.

The anger among the Kashmiris reached its threshold after the encounter of Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani in July last year, with thousands of them turning up in his funeral to commemorate his martyrdom, ready to make a hero out of a militant. The aftermath of his encounter saw two-month long curfew in the valley and the violent clashes between the protestors and the security persons, claiming over 75 lives, injuring more than 12,000 civilians, partially damaging the vision of over 1000 civilians and permanently blinding five of them due to pellets.

The situation in Kashmir is utterly grim, and the government overlooking the basic concerns of Kashmiris and employing muscular policies to retrieve the situation through brute military measures is adding more fuel to the fire. Kashmir remains one of the heavily deployed military bases in the world with numbers reaching more than 7 lakhs army men, as stated by J&K Coalition of Civil Society’s report named ‘Structures of Violence’. According to the government sources, there are around 150 militants currently active in the Valley. Do we really need 7 lakh soldiers to contain 150 militants?

By reducing the presence of the army and paramilitary forces and handing over the responsibility of maintaining law and order in the hands of J&K Police would do a great help in reducing hatred among Kashmiris against the Indian state and prove to be a first step towards embracing them as our own citizen. In order to build confidence among Kashmiris, the government needs to begin talks with all the stakeholders of Kashmir, such as the civil society groups, student leaders and the separatists. All this done, the government needs to make it clear that if it considers Kashmir as an integral part of India, it needs to start accepting Kashmiris as their own citizens and stop treating them as the enemy.

Psephologists failed to predict the massive win of BJP in the 2017 Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, even as they did forecast an edge for the saffron party. Times Now VMR and News 24 Chanakya had predicted a clean sweep for BJP and gave 200 and 285 seats respectively and 120 and 88 seats to SP-Congress alliance respectively. The other exit polls showed BJP leading but falling short of the majority.

After the elections were conducted successfully in all 403 constituencies in seven phases, political pundits started analysing and speculating the results, with many of them predicting a hung assembly. Manisha Priyam, a political analyst had predicted that BJP would be getting around 170-180 seats, SP-Congress settling at 100-110, and BSP securing only 90-100 seats. Ajit Jha, editor of India Today also predicted a hung assembly with BJP getting around 170 seats, SP-Congress at 130, and BSP at 90. Similarly, Sunita Aaron and Sharat Pradhan, both senior journalists had predicted more or less similar results. But to their dismay, BJP clean swept the election with securing a massive 312 out of 403 seats.

One of the major challenges before the analysts was to measure the impact of the demonetization drive on the mindset of people at the grassroots level. The elitist section was busy finding loopholes in the drive with almost forgetting to calculate the impression it had left on the common masses on the ground.

While we may criticise the psephologists for being unable to predict the results accurately, there are certain limitations which one comes across during the process of speculating the results. UP’s demography is made up of diverse overlapping identities of voters based on caste, language and religion which makes it difficult to grasp their voting patterns. It becomes a challenge to predict the impact of party hoppers such as Swami Prasad Maurya who left BSP to join BJP and Rita Bahuguna who joined BJP after leaving the Congress. Moreover, the formation of political alliances before the elections further dilutes the accuracy.

A two-day seminar on Cultures of Protest was organised by Wordcraft, the Ramjas literary society and the English department of Ramjas College, which was aborted as soon as it began, when members of the ABVP protested against Umar Khalid speaking at the conference. Khalid is a PhD scholar from Jawaharlal Nehru University and a student activist who was slapped with sedition charges last year. Umar Khalid was invited to speak on the theme ‘The war in Adivasi areas’. Here is a first-hand narration of the second day of the violence.

Ramjas College entrance was blocked by ABVP students; the common students of Ramjas, AISA, SFI, Pinjra tod and other sympathisers were standing opposite to the gate at a side of the footpath holding placards in their hands and shouting slogans, “go back – go back, ABVP – go back”. It was all going good till now, the protestors decided to advance towards the gate roaring the slogans at the peak of their voice. Police gathered around to stop them, ABVP became hyperactive. A Police bus was made to move in order to push the protestors back. The protestors stood there, adamant not to retreat. It was only when some ABVP members started instigating from the other sides by hitting some of the protestors at the back of their head, the violence crept into thescene. Then a unit of ABVP members went at the back of the protesters’ lot and started provoking them from behind. This interrupted the unity of protestors; half of them engaged themselves in reciprocating ABVP guys while others were busy dealing with Delhi Police.

This continued for long, ABVP trying to provoke violencefrom one side and Delhi Police continuing to obstruct the protestors from the other. The nexus between ABVP and Delhi Police became obvious. The protestors understood what was happening there. In the name of maintaining law and order, police stood as a mute spectator allowing ABVP all the freedom to carry out violence. Then a shrill cry of “Delhi Police – sharm karo,” pierced in amidst the commotion somewhere from the protestors’ lot, and then everybody followed, “sharm karo – sharm karo.” Counter slogans of “Desh ke gaddaron ko, joote maaro saalon ko” were hurled at the protesters, accompanied by chants of “Bharat Mata ki Jai” and “Vande Matram.” This exhibition of strength went on until the protestors decided to start their march.

As the protestors began marching towardsMaurice Nagar Police station, a stone came flying in and hit the back of the head of one of the protestors. And when I say stone, I mean big stones, not pebbles. Streams of blood dripped down his head, his handkerchief got stained with red. How fear struck he seemed, eyes red with anguish. The atmosphere turned more dreadful, as more stones were pelted, protestors were seen dodging and shielding their heads with bags. Nevertheless, protestors continued their march; stones were not enough to break their unity. ABVP too marched with them side by side to ensure the march gets disordered and it does not reach its destination. Police formed a human chain to separate the two student bodies, even then some ABVP members were able to barge in and attempt to thrash the protestors. This continued as we turned left to reach the police station, one person shot a bottle of banta soda at a tree adjacent to the road, the pieces of glass fell down with full intensity, fortunately without harming anyone.

The destination arrived finally, but before the protestors could reach the gates, ABVP members were able to capture the space and block it. Again a show of strength began with students sloganeering against each other. The demand of protesters was simple, to file a First Information Report against the perpetrators of violence. Protestors sat there on the road rigid with their demand. Time flew fast and it was about 06:00 pm, when Police started lathi charging at them mercilessly, creating the atmosphere more grim and ugly. The maintainers of law and order thrashed and dragged each and every protestor into buses, with ABVP members being the exception. Even female protestors were manhandled brutally. The horror-stricken students tried resisting but were overpowered by tall and strong police personnel armed with lathis. The curfew like situation came to an end, with busses filled with injured students being deported away from the location.

The recent episodes of violence at Ramjas College have only one thing to say, ‘fascism is here’.

I attended an event called “Love Without Fear” organised by AISA – All India Students’ Association outside the premises of Arts Faculty, Delhi University on the 13th of February. Posters shouting azadi and slogans of solidarity scribbled on placards were hanging all around, with a layer of barricades and police surrounding the venue. I with my other comrades were standing at the entrance, and amidst the voices of songs and slogans going at the background, a professor seeming lady, probably in her late fifties, emerged unexpectedly to enquire about the event. One question she asked was quite interesting. Since when ‘love’ has become political? To which none amongst us could reply properly.

I was thinking about it today, and realised eventually, that politics on hatred is quite mainstream, so politics on love could prove to be a counter force against it. Since there are several political outfits who rely on spreading hatred to gain some mileage, there should and must be voices of love which soughts to dominate the narratives of hatred. In the ongoing polls in Uttar Pradesh, BJP national president Amit Shah promised to establish Anti-Romeo squads to prevent young women from harassment, if the party is voted to power. Well, this didn’t translate down fairly when a National Co-Convener of BJP Sunil Bharala interpreted it as protection of young hindu girls from harassment. “Love jihad targets innocent girls and lure them. The Muzaffarnagar riots took place because of this love jihad,” says Mr. Bharala.

Politicians like him are habitual perpetrators of hatred, let’s not talk about them. But wait, does BJP even understand who Romeo is? As far as I have read, Romeo is one of the finest literary characters from one of the Shakespeare’s famous play, whose love life didn’t end well with Juliet. He is a tragic lover, and associating him with the rowdy corner boys would be doing injustice with his character. Romeo is a symbol of love, and BJP promising to create an Anti-Romeo squad speaks well of the party’s stance on love.

Enough of word twisting, now talking about the BJP’s manifesto for Uttar Pradesh, the party whose manifesto once again raked up the issue of Ram Temple, promised to end the custom of triple talaq, and talks about the issue of ‘exodus’ in Kairana, can it be trusted to deliver what it promises by launching Anti-Romeo squads? I doubt.

I was quite confused about ‘being sceptic’ and ‘being confused’ until I realised it is not required to be confused while being sceptical. The seeds of scepticism in my conscience were sown at the very beginning when I started putting various societal and cultural norms to scrutiny and questioned the dogmatic religious faiths. Since then I have been in a rigid habit of doubting anything and everything. I read and I learnt a lot, then again I read and I learnt more. By now I had developed the virtue of not believing in anyone or any piece of information until I myself certified their credibility and authenticity. Not believing blindly or doubting at every step is a sign of a healthy mind, but one must know its limitations. Going too far in it can prove to be fatal.

The very idea of scepticism deals with testifying every belief, knowledge or any piece of information of its authenticity. But practising it more often and putting it in use even in the domain of one’s personal lives can exhaust the thinking capability, as it takes a tremendous amount of energy in doubting and scrutinising. This exhaustion can drive the mind to a state of confusion, where it becomes hard to take sides during a conflict.

Confusion in itself embodies complexity and it can never be a part of scepticism. Confusion is a state of mind where one is in a constant tug of war between two or more extremes. The moment confusion creeps in and stays for a prolonged period, it swiftly pushes one to the verge of a mental illness popularly known as delirium. Sudden changes in feelings or perception are common in delirium, clouds of uncertainty hover around the head, and the person has a hard time taking concrete decisions, sometimes giving chills of disorientation too.

Choosing between binaries is one of the toughest tasks one has to confront, as it weeds out any possibilities of considering the wide variety of middle grounds. The world is not all sunshine and rainbows; sometimes one has to come across the rigid dichotomy of black and white, where the grey part ends up suffocating between the two extremes of black and white. In such times, Robert Frost comes to my rescue.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Playing politics on identity has been the easiest tool for politicians to climb their political ladder. Identity politics makes individuals seem primarily as members of a larger group, it puts ‘us’ in groups of us and ‘them’ in groups of them, thereby, making an individual’s identity inconsequential. Fear mongering is another tool to instil energies in people by making them believe their identity is under threat.

These two tools are what seem to be playing at the forefront in the demand to reverse the ban on Jallikattu. Political parties are being opportunistic in wooing the Tamil populace, and the protestors are being the soldiers of the north-south rift which started to appear right from the beginning of the anti-Hindi agitations.

Tamilians are showing a kind of an energy like never seen before, with thousands coming out at Marina beach to demand the upliftment of the ban imposed on Jallikattu. The event has been magnified beyond imagination, and all this just for a rural sport? We never witnessed such huge agitations when the unfortunate mass molestation happened in Bangalore; we never witnessed such protests when farmers had to bear the brunt of the Cauvery water dispute. Identity politics makes these real issues seem unimportant before these fancy issues.

A large number of youths are taking part in this agitation, and it needs to be appreciated that youths are taking active participations in a non-violent way, upholding the essence of a democratic nation. But here the concern arises that a lot of youth energy is being wasted. The energy of the young is a powerful asset which needs to be channelized in a proper direction.

India is still a developing country, you know why? Because Indians are too much obsessed with pseudoscience. What is pseudoscience? Wikipedia defines pseudoscience as “A claim, belief or practice which is incorrectly presented as scientific, but does not adhere to a valid scientific method, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status.” In simple words, when myth is mixed with science it produces “pseudoscience”.

Other than blind faiths and superstitions prevailing in Indian society, that has been continuously criticised by the freethinkers which has helped a lot in progressing India socially and culturally, the next big thing to be concerned about is pseudoscience. Religious people tend to satisfy and propagate their belief system by telling people that it is scientific, but without giving evidence or else if they give, they give fake evidences. And common people without digging deep on their own whether the claim is correct or not, gets misguided by these brainless goons.

One interesting thing about pseudoscience is that, people immediately agree to believe that something is true if it is served in the ‘scientifically proven’ platter.

Pseudoscience can most commonly be found among people belonging to the societies where they are still stuck with supernatural beings and where education has not yet reached. It can be found among the people who are quite lazy to accept the truth as it is, and rather look for the truth as they wish it to be.

In India, basically the Hindutva fringes relies on pseudoscience to retain their age old tradition, promote their culture and to demand global acceptance for the greatness of ancient Indian culture. Sure, the culture of ancient India has given a lot to this world, I am not questioning its sanctity. But maligning it with pseudoscience and then promoting it, will only backfire on us and end up attracting a global disrespect for ancient Indian culture.

Every culture evolves with time but some goons always has problem in digesting this fact and just in order to retain their culture takes the help of pseudoscience and this way restricting India from developing socially.